Digital Scholarship Seminar @ NUI Galway | Tuesday 8 March | 12pm

The third event of this series of Digital Scholarship Seminar @ NUI Galway is co-hosted with the Early Modern Research Seminar, and takes place on Tuesday 8 March at 12pm in Hardiman Building Room 1001. Anders Ingram, who recently completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Moore Institute, will present a paper that brings computational and quantitative methods to bear on the study of book history. The paper focuses on the printing career of George Bishop, a leading figure in the sixteenth-century London book trade. Lunch will be provided and, as ever, all are welcome.

12-2pm // Tuesday 8 March // Room 1001 (First Floor) Hardiman Research Building // Facebook event page

Anders Ingram

The Business of Books: Quantifying the Career of George Bishop, Stationer (c.1538-1611). 

George Bishop was a leading figure in the turn of the sixteenth century London book trade. Bishop served as master of the Stationers Company an exceptional five times. He was defacto Royal Printer, alongside his partner Ralph Newberry, as Christopher Barker’s deputy, in the years 1588-1600. Over the course of his career he maintained lengthy relationships with major figures in the European book trade such as the Antwerp printer Christophe Plantin and the Cologne booksellers the Birckmans. Perhaps most importantly he published editions of Chaucer, Fox, Camden, Hakluyt, Holinshed, Stow, and numerous other prominent and important authors.

This paper draws upon a database I have built of the publication details and physical characteristics of Bishops 583 extant imprints, alongside archival evidence, to reconstruct the career of this prominent bookseller/publisher, his partnerships, and his evolving business practices and network. I will also address some of the methodological issues which arise studying early publishers such as Bishop whose accounts books do not survive.